This invention relates to a stator assembly for a dynamoelectric machine in which an insulating barrier means is placed between two or more windings or coils.
Insulating barriers of various types have been used between starting and running windings in an attempt to electrically insulate one winding from another both within the stator slots and at the end turns. One known type of insulating barrier has consisted of a multiplicity of unitary, spatulate pieces of insulating material each designed for use within a single stator slot which are alternately hand inserted from opposite ends of the stator assembly, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,998,540. Such spatulate insulating pieces have generally contained transverse slits near the juncture of the head and shank parts.
Other known types of insulating barrier constructions between running and starting windings have included end turn insulating separators which provide a pair of transverse sections oppositely disposed at axial ends of the stator assembly which are interconnected by only a pair of legs. Because of the width of the transverse sections, many of the stator slots containing both the running and starting windings have not contained legs of the end turn separators thus necessitating the employment of varying length insulating pegs within the slots in order to provide complete electrical insulation, particularly at the axial ends of the stator slots. Thus, longer insulating pegs have been hand inserted within slots between the starting and running windings which have not contained legs of the end turn separators while substantially shorter insulating pegs were hand or machine inserted into slots containing such legs.
Frequently, such various types of insulating pegs used to separate the running and starting windings differed in size and construction from the insulating pegs used to close the stator slots and spaced adjacent to the rotor bore which have been commonly machine inserted. Such constructions have necessitated the fabrication of different sizes and types of insulating pegs and have required costly and numerous time consuming steps of assembly, some of which were performed by hand.